Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!purdue!decwrl!labrea!glacier!jbn
From: jbn@glacier.STANFORD.EDU (John B. Nagle)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: Electoral systems (Was: Big Brother)
Message-ID: <17958@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Date: 1 Jan 89 15:56:51 GMT
References: <8901010855.AA11720@violet.berkeley.edu>
Reply-To: jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle)
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 22

In article <8901010855.AA11720@violet.berkeley.edu>,
mwm@VIOLET.BERKELEY.EDU (Mike Meyer) writes:
>We might consider "Australian rules" voting ("'s becuase that's what
>I've heard it called - I have no idea what, if any, relation it has to
>Australia). By this system, all voters rank the choices. The votes for
>#1 are then counted. If nobody achieves a majority, the least popular
>candidate is eliminated, and all those who had that as the #1 vote
>have all the other choices moved up by one. This process repeats until
>some candidate has a majority.

     This is called the "single transferrable vote" system of voting.
It's used in a few places to elect at-large councils and similar groups.
But it isn't really that useful when electing for a single office.

     The Hare System of Proportional Representation is similar in purpose.
The Irish Dail and the City Council of Cambridge, MA are elected using the
Hare system.  

     Both systems are a legacy of the populist era of the 1930s.  Both are
hard to tabulate, although today, this should be much less of an issue.

					John Nagle